It's a boy!

Today we went for our anatomy scan. It was so exciting and surreal to see our little baby a. actually looking like a baby, and b. moving around in there. Our ultrasound tech was completely amazing and spent so much time with us, showing us all the important parts...plus the most important "part" that let us know we're welcoming a little mister! With two male pets, my husband, and this little guy on the way, I'm going to continue to be in a house surrounded by boys...or as Doug put it, "The house of dude prevails!" Doug was so excited, he immediately wanted to go out and get Lego sets and Star Wars onesies. I think I'm gonna need some serious lady time in the near future...pedis anyone?

I think the most amazing thing is to see how he's grown from this itty bitty bean:

6 weeks

To our little "Casper":

8 weeks

To this cute little peanut with a teensy nose and tiny feet:

I seriously can't believe that in about 4 1/2-5 months we get to meet him! I feel like he already has quite the personality. He was tapping his little feet in there today, scratching his head, and rolling around. He even had the hiccups (which I think is hilarious since I get them all. the. time). I found out I'm feeling so much because he's positioned really close to the front of my stomach, and my posterior placenta means there's no cushion to muffle the movements. He also has a beautiful set of kidneys, a nice strong spine, no signs of birth defects, and the four chambers of his heart are formed.  The u/s tech said we got a "A+" and that he was a very active baby (oh dear). Since he's so close to the front, she'd nudge his little body from the outside and he'd sweetly settle into a new position so she could examine his different parts. What a good little guy! We even got a (slightly creepy looking) 3D since he was so cooperative:

Look at his little 3d gremlin face!

I'm going to be honest, the anatomy scan was a BIG deal to me, especially seeing the spine. I used a heating pad on my stomach very early in pregnancy to deal with muscle cramps (before I found out that's a big no-no) and had myself convinced I gave the baby spina bifida (and was driving everyone around me crazy worrying about it). I burst into tears in the car afterwards because I was so relieved that he was healthy and growing normally. I think this is just the start of a lifetime of mommy-worry. God help me. 

So, now we get to start planning the nursery and considering names. It feels so much more real now than before, knowing that "it" is a "he". I admire people that have the patience to wait to find out what they're having, but I wouldn't trade this knowledge for the world. I can't wait to meet this little gentleman. 

Um, Mrs. Laura...

"...somebody told me that you're having a baby!"

So begins some of my most favorite conversations with my kids lately. Usually, my pregnancy been discussed in the lunch room or on the bus and they want confirmation (and are always surprised when I tell them it's true), though one little girl told me her younger sister announced it at the dinner table (Apparently she shouted, "I HAVE GOOD NEWS! MRS. LAURA IS HAVING A BABY!") There have been some truly hilarious reactions from my students, especially since they span Kindergarten all the way to 4th grade. Here's some of my recent favorites:

A K boy (as he runs after me down the hall): "HEY! HEY MRS. LAURA! I heared you're gettin' pregnant!"

A K boy: "You're pregnant?! (cue disgusted look on his face) Why?!"

A 1st grade girl: "Congratulations! I can't believe you just had a baby!" (I explain I haven't had it yet. She stares at my stomach for a good minute) "Wait. It's IN there?"

A 1st grade boy: "You're having a baby? Ugh. ANOTHER one?" (I explain this is my first child, so yes, I'm having a baby, but no, not another one)

A 3rd grade girl: "Are you excited?" (Yes) "You won't be when it's time for it to come out."

A 3rd grade boy: "You're pregnant? Well that's not good news. Who wants a baby?"

A 4th grade boy (shaking his head sadly): "I really hope it's a girl...for your sake. Boys can get pretty messy."

A 4th grade girl: "If it's a boy, I really like the name Carlos. Yep, definitely Carlos. It sounds AWESOME."
(I told her I'd run it by Mr. Laura)

Just a mini update

This one's gonna be short & sweet...
Today marks the last day of month 4! Tomorrow I'm officially a 5 month preg-Nancy. Wowza!

Here's my end of 17 weeks photo. I wish I was better about taking pics earlier each week, but I usually look like trash during the work week (thanks to a 15 minutes-before-I-leave-the-house wake-up time lately) so its generally a no-go. According to my husband's family friend, I'm "really bumping out!"

I also think I'm feeling more frequent movement. I really can't wait to a. find out what I'm having and b. feel the first real kick from the outside. Thursday is the anatomy scan! Eeee!

In other news, we just got a new camera and we're picking it up tonight. I'm hoping to get a little fancy with the picture taking from here on out...and practice for some major paparazzi once this little bebop arrives.

Also, big congrats to my former lib co-worker Kari--we're due on the same day! If we happen to be in the hospital at the same time, the plan is to find each other and high-five mid-labor...if I'm not crying inconsolably/unconscious/dead since my vision of childbirth is decidedly horror-movie quality. Mommas out there--tell me it's not so bad? Or am I right on?

Oh,and one last thing. I want everything from this etsy store for the nursery. I mean, seriously! Adorable!

Hey, hey baby!

Well, it's been a pretty ridiculously long time since I posted on here, and an update is fully in order.
Since my last post:
I went to New Orleans for a conference with my mom:

My best girl since age 5, Jessica, got married:

My dog wore this:

My cat did that:











I've been continuing to cake pop it up with Sarah, and...

Oh yeah. I got knocked up.

Doug & I are over the moon about it. We kept it a secret from everyone but closest friends & family through the first trimester, but the word is out now. As of Saturday, I'm 17 weeks along, and we scheduled the anatomy ultrasound at my doctor's appointment today, which means in 2 weeks I'll be decking this blog out in either pink or blue. My inner crazy, type-a, super control freak self has been secretly counting the seconds until we can find out if this is a little miss or a little mister. I mean, hello! We have a nursery to decorate! Bedding to consider! Clothes to buy! And probably worst of all...names to pick! D & I have been finding names to be a particular challenge. If it's a boy, we're pretty set on our name (but keeping it a sorta secret until the baby is born. I think it's creepy when people refer to a pregnant woman's stomach by name) but if it's a girl...oh dear. Lourdes Hospital may just be posting "baby girl" on their announcement page instead of an actual moniker at the rate we're going. I think it may be a teensy weensy bit because my personal criteria for our future little person's name is somewhat extreme. I'm looking for a name that:
1. Is not made up, trendy, invented, or so unique that no one has ever heard of it...
2. But not so common that a million little ones will have it--I'd like something kinda unique
3. Is classic but not common (see #1 and #2)
4. Sounds good with Laura (this is the hardest part)
5. Lends itself well to nicknames
6. Can work for a cute little baby all the way to a professional adult
7. Is easy to spell and pronounce, and not so out there that people scrunch up their noses and say "ugh" when they hear it
8. (This is where the list narrows waaaaay down) Does not remind me of one of the 500+ kids I teach daily
9. Does not already belong to a member of our family or friends or even acquaintances, really, because see #2

The problem (I mean, before you get to #8 and #9 which I can acknowledge are a little impossible) is that some of these criteria are in direct opposition to one another. Elizabeth is easy to pronounce, classic, lends itself well to nicknames...but fails #3. It's too common. Penelope meets #1, 2, 3, 4, 5...but majorly fails #7 and Doug hates it. I could go on for ages! How does anyone ever choose the name that their child will live with for the rest  of their life? This is quite possibly the hardest decision I've ever made...and don't even get me started on cribs, strollers, and baby gear. It's enough to drive you to drink (virgin, please).

Anyway, this has been the all-consuming portion of my life lately, and D & I still can't believe our house will soon be inhabited by another living, breathing (pooping, crying, puking, never-sleeping) human being. It's all a little surreal. Thank God I have other mama-friends going through it now or already having done it to be my safety net/support group, and of course, my awesome husband, although sometimes we look at each other and say, "What did we just get ourselves into?" with a combination of joy and panic in our voices.

Also, I've been taking weekly belly pictures, and can I just say, I look SO much more pregnant at night? It's really amazing. Here's the latest and greatest as of today (16 weeks, 5 days).

In other news, our basement should be (finally) getting fixed from the great September flood. I'm pumped (ha! literally! we're getting new pumps installed!) since the contents of the basement may or may not be currently residing in the soon-to-be-nursery. However, that mess is a post for another night. In the meantime, I'm off to drink my nightly banana chocolate milkshake--I might as well enjoy it while I can! 

A sigh for England.

(Disclaimer: this post was written about three days ago, but I was lazy about uploading pictures to go along with the post. So, read this like it's actually Tuesday.)

I woke up this morning with a massive case of the blahs.

More specifically, I had a dream about being in Europe...and damn it if it didn't throw me into a funk for the entire day. I miss that place, those adventures, more than I can ever describe. I go through this about once a year, and feel the same way, and just ache and ache for youth and wildness and adventure and freedom. I don't know if it's because I was at a personal low before I went and it turned me around, or because everything felt so exciting all the time, or because the people I met there remain, to this day, some of my very best friends on the planet, but I would literally give everything, anything, to get back there and feel that way again.

Maybe it's also because the summer is winding down, and I don't want it to end. Life feels like it's changing a lot around here. I'm back at my job (thankyougod) in September, but I'm giving up coaching cheer. It was time for me to step away, for a whole big list of reasons. I'm feeling a little sad about the end of a chapter, but for the most part, the sadness has been overwhelmed by a giant sense of relief. Doug and I are coming up on our one year anniversary, and we're talking family and babies, which is thrilling and terrifying all at once. Can I be brutally honest? There's a huge part of me that feels like life just ends when you have children. I don't mean that in a horrible I-hate-babies kind of way, because the truth couldn't be more opposite. I love children. I desperately want to have children. I have awful child-envy for my friends' little ones. But then, I think to myself: I didn't get back to Europe (though I should be grateful I got to go at all). I didn't finish writing a book. What about driving across the country? Seeing California? What about living a big life filled with adventure? What about all those things that I promised myself I would do, see, be, experience? Does anyone else feel the same? Advice?

Sometimes I think my dreams of what I want to happen are hindered by my need to over-plan everything and my raging jealousy of what other people are doing with their lives. I gave myself a big long speech on this blog about living in the moment and being grateful for what I have a few months ago. Yet, here I am, wishing for the life I haven't lived yet. Sigh. I'm hopeless.

In productive news, I managed to tackle some of the summer list I posted about a month ago. To date, the vines are out of the front (huzzah!)
BEFORE:

DURING:

There's an after that I'll add once I actually take a picture, with flowers and mulch...but again, sheer laziness has set in. Moving on...

I'm winding down on my statistics course (and pulling down a 100 average, heck yes!). We've gotten in touch with a contractor and should be moving along with the basement repair soon. The organization...well, I planned to do that today, so you can see how well that's working out for me (side note: it's now Thursday. I still haven't touched it, though I have read two books this week. Priorities!). We got Oscar a bark collar that literally changed him into the dog of my dreams overnight. It was miraculous. On the baking front, we're booking a table at the CV Craft Show and plan to debut some new delicious treats there (Maybe with a new business name. Thoughts?).

As for writing, I've been failing at that. I don't know what my roadblock is, but every time I sit down to do it, I find something else to do. Same with exercise. Oops.

I'm hoping before the summer ends, I can get to NYC to see a long-lost friend, plan a trip to see my bestest long-distance girl in the G-Raggedy for sometime before 2012 and the end of the world, pull myself together and WRITE already, and really, truly, get rid of the junk in our house.

For today, I'm doing really well at #8 on the original list...and maybe checking out airfare to England.

Sweet summer

Sigh. So this is summer.

It feels like a long time coming, after the tumultuous last few months. This is my first summer not working, which is a pretty odd feeling considering I've been working/volunteering over my summers since the 7TH GRADE. I didn't know what was happening to me next year, so I didn't job search. Oh, well. (I sound pretty bummed out, right?) Last week, we went to the beach with my parents and brother, and we threw a little 4th of July BBQ yesterday.

I have clean up ahead of me (unpacking and de-partying our house) but it's the first real day of nothing important to do, so instead I'm sitting in bed, at (gasp) 10:30 am, listening to Oscar snore and thinking over my "to-do" list of things to accomplish before September rolls around.

Here's what my summer looks like so far:

1. Clean/organize/sort the unbelievable amount of crap we've accumulated since moving into the house,some of which was accumulated and left by the previous owners. The general plan is a garage sale sooner than later, and renting a dumpster as a last step for finally getting rid of some of the nonsense that we just don't know what to do with. We currently have 4, count 'em, 4 extra couches (one  is currently on our curb if anyone is interested), chairs galore, knickknacks beyond measure, and tchotchkes beyond your wildest dreams. If I can clean out the garage/attic/basement this summer, it will be a success.Which leads me to....

2. Hire a contractor to fix up our monstrous basement. We were flooded earlier this spring, thrice, and now we are the proud owners of warped, nasty, rotten paneling. So, we've gotta get that taken care of, stat. We fixed up the non-flooded side of the basement just this weekend, with some new Berber rugs (which, by the way, were a total steal at $300 for two 12 x 15 bound rugs from Warehouse Carpet). Doug also set up his new music room/ man cave/jam space. I was feeling a little grumpy about giving up the space that used to house a card table and some other odds and ends, but I have to admit, it looks pretty snazzy.

3. Go through all of our papers and file them. We started this process, but haven't finished yet. Since moving in together and getting married, we sort of just kept shoving any papers that seemed mildly important into various drawers in the office....which made doing our taxes and my FAFSA (I started classes to earn my second Masters in Ed Admin) this year a total, all encompassing nightmare. So, we've started filing, and I'd really like to get that under control asap.

4. Tackle the ugly green on green on green front landscaping. I've been saying this since we moved in. I hate, hate, hate the front of our house. There's the grass, which is fine, but that melts into this awful tangly ground cover vine thing, which borders an equally unattractive line of hedge. I'm not sure if I have it in me to rip out the hedges, but those vines are going, going, gone if it's the last thing I do...and given how many of them there are, it just might be. I did some work in the back garden, and I'm really, really happy with how it came out. I'm hoping the front will be as successful.

5. Take my statistics course that I am not loving, but am happy to be starting. 1 course started, 11 more to go!

6. Keep baking.

7. Work on the novel Doug and I started over two years ago. Like, really work on it. I don't even care about it being published, I'd just like to say I did it and it's done.

8. Sleep.

9. Possibly do something with our pink and gray bathroom of ultimate heinousness. Maybe. Doug thinks it's better left alone. I totally disagree. I mean, look at it. Gross.

10. Fix the scrapes in the wood floors that came from moving furniture without pads. Oops.

11. Break Oscar's will to bark at everything, all the time, to the point of ridiculousness.

12. Exercise. A lot, to make up for #6.

OK, maybe I'm over-planning. I do have the tendency to do that. But, that's the plan for now. I might be singing a different tune in a week or two.

For now, I think I'll start cleaning...but then again, maybe I'll just go back to bed. It's summer, after all.

Secrets Kept Secret.

I am writing this post almost a full month before I can share it. It was hard to keep it a secret for so long.

On Friday, May 13, I got a visit from my Superintendent. He sat down in front of me, and told me he was recommending my job be reinstated at the June 9th Board Meeting. I almost passed out.

He told me that they recognized everything I've done this year and the past three years I've worked there. He told me they value me as an employee, and that I'm an integral part of the goals of the district. He told me they may be moving me. He told me I was employed if the Board passes the vote on June 9th.

Let me say that again: HE TOLD ME I'M EMPLOYED.

He also told me I needed to keep it quiet for now. Out of the 22 teachers still being laid off, there is only myself and one other person being saved. We are the very, very lucky ones. It's simply not fair that so many talented, smart, amazing teachers will still be facing what I was facing. It's not right that they could only save a handful of us when every single teacher being let go deserves their job. I am blessed in a way that I can't fathom to have been given my job back.

I had to close my eyes when he was talking to me so I didn't throw up on his shoes or start crying. I am so relieved, so grateful, so happy I have my job. I had hit my worst just a few days before. I was in despair. I was lost, directionless, hopeless, worried. At that moment, when he told me that I could work there again, I felt...sure. I was back to where I thought I was before this all started. My life was on track. I knew what I was supposed to be doing. I am meant to be in a school--this school.

After he left, I had to sit down on the floor and take it in. I told my clerk and we celebrated together. My principal came in and hugged me. I ran into the computer lab and called my husband and my mom as the weight of the past three months lifted off my shoulders.

You know what's strange? I'm happy this happened to me. It was good for me. It woke me up and made me realize that I'm content to live in my small hometown. It made me realize I'm ready for a new challenge, so bring on the middle school if that's what's supposed to happen next. It certainly made me more resilient, so if (and when, because there's a good shot that it will) it happens again next year, I think I'll be better off than I was this time. It brought out my creative side, started a new business in baking, renewed my need to write, and made me take stock of my life.

At the same time, I'm a little melancholy. I was geared up to go do something wild and reckless. I had a vision of staying home with babies, or working at a college, or becoming a full time writer, or moving to a new place. There's a huge part of me that wants to always be on the move, trying new things, seeing new places. I am endlessly restless. I have to balance that desire for change with the realization that when I was being forced into a drastic situation I wanted to stay where I already am. I need to remember to value what I've got instead of always wanting something else. This is enough, more than enough.

So, here comes another year....and who knows what the next few weeks will bring. Who knows what the next year will bring? I'll keep blogging, though the original theme of the blog will change. Life keeps moving, and shifting, and changing. Though I may not be totally starting over anymore, I am starting something new. I can't wait to see what happens.